


Experiential Knowledge

by periphery87



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Gen, M/M, Panic Attack, i had some ideas after Beyond
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-01
Updated: 2016-12-01
Packaged: 2018-09-03 12:45:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,889
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8714479
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/periphery87/pseuds/periphery87
Summary: They know each other better than they know themselves.
Or, how Leonard flew a spacecraft and Jim got a birthday party.





	

They _always_ have dinner on Thursdays.

It’s not an official date or anything. The mess hall at Starfleet Academy rarely is. Cadets just show up at mealtimes and, eventually, find their people. It’s usually not the only meal Jim and Leonard end up sharing, either – far from it. But attempting regular plans amidst Academy life is all hell.

But Leonard is always here on Thursdays. Until now. Jim pokes dispiritedly at his casserole and wonders how one goes about forming a search party. Where should he look first? The xenobio class on Thursday afternoons is all the way across campus, and that’s only the last two hours of the day. That’s so much space and time to get lost in.

_Slow down_ , he tells himself.

Leonard pulls the early-morning urgent care shift on Fridays so he always eats dinner and goes right to bed. He won’t have done anything crazy.

Not voluntarily, at least.

_Slow down._

The thing is, Jim’s not used to these stories’ having happy endings.

The moment that thought crystallizes in his mind is the moment the murderous face of Leonard McCoy appears in the doorway to the mess hall. All the air goes out of Jim as he watches Bones stomp through the chattering tables, straight for him.

“Damn communicator broke,” he says abruptly, dumping his bag onto the seat across the way. “Would’ve let you know otherwise. Look at the goddamn thing for me, will ya?”

Just like that he’s gone again. Jim sits there with his bag and his comm, woozy with relief.

By the time Leonard returns with his food, he’s calmed down enough to explain what happened. “Some morons were doing hoverboard tricks in the quad and one of them fell. No protective gear, naturally. I didn’t trust her idiot friends to get her to Med by themselves.”

“Bones, Bones. Always looking out for the little guys.”

“I really meant to comm you. I’m sorry.”

Jim waves him off, pointing a loaded fork at the broken comm. “It doesn’t matter. It’s just dinner.”

“It does matter. When I say I’m going to be somewhere, I’m there.”

“Technically, neither of us said we were going to be here.”

Leonard stabs at his salad and thinks about this. “Well, it’s the same thing at this point, isn’t it?”

Jim never asks him to explain this cryptic statement. He doesn’t need to.

Leonard never stands him up.

Not once.

 

 

 

 

Jim is constantly baffled by Leonard’s approach to academics. It’s not that he doesn’t study for his med-track classes – he does, constantly, but he just calls it “reading” and it’s an extension of himself. He reads journals while walking. He reads the xenobio textbook at breakfast, casually, interrupts conversations with medical trivia that no-one cares to know, usually relating to exotic parasites and diseases questionably named after foods. He is far too casual not to be doing this on purpose.

It’s the non-med courses that throw him for a loop. Jim will come back to their place to find Leonard surrounded by pages of notes, wearing a wild-eyed expression appropriate to a natural disaster. He was up all night before their first Interstellar Cartography exam, scrolling through the study guide again and again. Since then he has eased up slightly, but only enough to allow himself one or two hours of sleep.

He’s passing everything just fine. Jim doesn’t understand.

“I haven’t had to study like this since pre-clinicals,” Leonard tries to explain.

“Bones,” Jim says patiently, “you _don’t_ have to study like this. That’s what I’m trying to tell you.”

“Fuck off,” says Leonard.  


The night before their Galactic Diplomacy final second year, Jim comes back to their place, drops his bag, kicks off his shoes, and only then spots Leonard passed out on the couch. One arm is flung up over his head and his PADD is poking into his chin. Jim leans against the wall and considers his options.

Usually, when this happens, he just lets Leonard be and only nudges him awake around bedtime or mealtime if he hasn’t already been woken by the general untidiness. It’s one of his grandfather-like tendencies, the impromptu napping. He’ll rouse, grumble a bit, and then go about his day.

But the exam is tomorrow and Leonard has barely slept for the past three nights. The bags beneath his eyes looks like bruises. He’s even wearing yesterday’s shirt.

The hell of it all is that he’s ready for the exam. Jim’s quizzed him himself.

“Madman,” Jim murmurs aloud at the sleeping figure. “If I wake you up you’ll make a pot of coffee and be up all night.”

So instead he slips into Leonard’s room and drags all the covers off his bed. There are a lot of covers. In the living room he has to untangle them, as quietly as possible. Holding his breath, he lifts the PADD out of Leonard’s lax grip and sets it under the couch, then starts to drape the sheet and blankets over him. Leonard mumbles in his sleep, burrows deeper into the throw pillow he insisted on buying because _I am a goddamn adult, Jim_. There will be drool on that pillow in the morning. Jim draws the top blanket up around Leonard’s shoulders and ruffles his hair absently.

In the morning Leonard is right where Jim left him, snoring away. Jim congratulates himself and is in the shower when the screeching starts. He sings to block it out.

“You let me sleep,” Leonard says accusingly as soon as Jim steps out of the bathroom. He is busily making coffee, rumpled and harassed.

“Yes I did,” Jim says agreeably.

“You – did you tuck me in like a goddamn infant?”

“Of course not,” Jim says, pretending to be affronted. “I know better than to put loose blankets on an infant, Bones, _geez_.”

“You – what?”

“Relax. Drink your coffee. The only way you fail this test is if you fall asleep in the middle. See, I saved you.”

“Go put some clothes on, you fool.”

Of course they both pass. “You can thank me now,” Jim says on the broad white steps of the academic quad, nudging Leonard in the ribs.

“How on earth did you learn about infant sleep safety?” Leonard grumbles.

“When you bounce from relative to relative, you learn a lot about little kids.” Jim shrugs. He’s not embarrassed about telling these things to Bones, not anymore.

Leonard squeezes his shoulder. “Guess I owe you a drink, huh?”

From then on, whenever Jim finds Leonard asleep on the couch, or the floor, or slumped over his desk in Medbay, he puts at least one blanket on him and sternly warns everyone to let him be. Bones needs the rest.

 

 

 

 

“Guess who decided to let me know she’s in town.” Jim looks uncharacteristically stern, like a schoolteacher, when he slams through the door.

“Who?” Leonard asks dutifully.

“My _mother_.”

“That’s great. When does she get in?”

“Yesterday. _Listen_ to me, Bones. She’s already here for her whatever with the brass, without bothering to warn me at all, and now she expects me to drop everything to have dinner with her tonight because she’s flying out again in the morning, because of course whatever she’s doing in London is top-secret and vital and certainly more important than _anything_ else, like, for example, doing her only son the basic courtesy of letting him know that she’s going to be on the same _continent_ for thirty-six hours.” Jim snorts heavily, like an enraged bull, and throws himself onto the couch next to Leonard. “What? You’re staring.”

“That was a _long_ sentence, is all.” Leonard nudges Jim’s knee with his own. “So. You gonna go?”

Jim tips his head back and watches the ceiling. “Dunno.”

Leonard waits.

“I hate how she thinks she can just… be away and then turn up and expect everything to be okay. I mean, what if I had plans tonight?”

“You don’t.”

“But that’s not the point.”

“No, it’s not. But it _is_ why I think you should go.”

Jim rolls his head to watch Leonard now, surprisingly quiet. “You do?”

“Yeah. You’re family. That means that if you’re busy, she should understand… and if you’re not, you should go.”

“I’m not sure I even want to see her.”

Leonard thinks of Jim as a child, at one relative’s house or another, standing with his nose smeared against a window, watching the sky. Waiting for his mother. “But she wants to see you?”

“She says she does.”

Their knees knock together. Leonard lets his eyes rove over Jim’s face, watching Jim watch him, waiting for him to make the next step.

“How am I supposed to believe her?” Jim’s voice is a whisper. “After all those years… how am I supposed to believe her now?”

“You don’t have to _believe_ her. Look, you know I’m the last person to defend your ma. But she wants to want to see you. And I know you want to want to see her. Trust me?”

“Yeah,” Jim says without hesitation.

“If you let this opportunity go… all those missed opportunities will pile up, and you won’t ever have a relationship with her. And you want one, someday.”

“Yeah,” Jim says again, and sighs. “Guess I’d better get changed, then. Whatever will you do without me tonight?”

“Get some work done for once,” Leonard deadpans. He watches Jim bounce off the couch and towards his room. “Maybe call Jo.”

“Excellent,” Jim yells from what sounds like the back of his closet.

On his way out he perches on the couch again and takes Leonard by the shoulders. “You know you’re nothing like her, right? With Jo, I mean. I’ve seen you with her and she is – so lucky – trust me, Bones.”

Leonard scoffs, taken by surprise, blinking away the damp in his eyes. “I think that’s enough sentimentality for one day.”

“If you insist.” Jim squeezes his shoulders and then he’s off.

 

 

 

It’s been a bad week all around.

Jim’s good with kids. The bunch of child-hostages the _Enterprise_ rescued has been trooping after him happily whenever he gives them the chance, which is often. Children and Jim feed off each other. Everyone else gets the exact same headache.

Except Leonard. He treats each child himself. Sits them one by one on his table and asks their names and their favorite colors and waits until they’re comfortable before examining them inch by inch. The smaller ones tug at his shirt, drool on his tricorder, play with spare regen straps. The older ones sit stiffly until he promises never to lie to them.

It takes him hours, well into ship’s night, but he refuses to sleep until he’s seen them all. Jim is waiting for him when he’s done, spinning absently in his office chair.

“Tell me you didn’t wait up for me,” Leonard says.

“I didn’t. I was on the comms with the brass until an hour ago. Do you want your desk back?”

“Nah, just gimme that PADD.”

Jim does so, holding Leonard’s arm for a moment. “Anything major with the kids?”

“Nah, just – what you’d expect.”

Jim squeezes his arm.

“They’re malnourished and bruised and – a little haunted.” He clears his throat, annoyed at himself. “And they’re crazy about _you_.”

Jim smiles. “Of course they are. Well, me and kids, you know. You should get some sleep.”

“So should you.”

“I will. _After_ I walk you to your quarters so I can be sure you haven’t opened another chart on me.”

\--------------------

Leonard is woken far too early by his comm, which is chiming insistently. He claws it off the nightstand, drops it on the floor, and punches it open while hanging half off his bed. “ _What._ ”

“Hey, Bones.”

“Dammit Jim, I thought I was supposed to be fucking sleeping. You are supposed to be fucking sleeping. Are the kids all right?”

“Fine. I just need you to stay awake for five more minutes. Maybe ten.”

“What the hell for?”

“You might want to straighten your rats’ nest too. All right, have fun.”

“Have fun with what? Jim? Dammit Jim!”

His comm does not reply. Leonard grumbles another string of curses under his breath and sits up in bed, scrabbling at his hair. He has no idea what is happening. The omnipresent shipboard clock informs him that it’s actually just an hour before alpha shift, not so early after all. But he was up so late… so late… he shakes that off. Five minutes. He decides to get up and use the head, to keep himself from drifting off.

When he’s done he sits on the edge of his bed and stares aimlessly across the room until his attention is caught by the softly blinking light of the vidscreen on his desk. It’s a bit brighter than a moment ago – the screen lights up now with an incoming call. Somehow this must be what Jim wanted him to be awake for.

He stumbles across the room to his desk and hits accept and then, suddenly, his daughter’s face is blinking at him from the screen. After a moment her face lights up. “Daddy! Turn some lights on, I can barely see you! Mommy said I should call you early this week but she didn’t say why but I get to talk to you before soccer practice!”

“Jo!” he says, feeling a different self wash over him, the man he is when he is with her, as easy and light as anything. His voice changes without his even trying.

“Daddy, the lights! Mom always says not to read in the dark.”

“Lights fifty percent. Is that better? I’m not even reading.”

“But you’re doing something with your eyes so that should _count._ Don’t you think?”

They argue about this for a few minutes before she starts telling him a very long story about who said what to whom last time they were at soccer practice, which later segues into a story about a very cool bug she found in the grass. “I was the only one who would touch it! Everybody else said bugs are gross.”

Leonard entertains a brief fantasy of Joanna McCoy, entomologist. She’s always loved getting into the dirt, to see what she can see in that microscopic frontier. He’ll have to find something on the ship for her – the xenobio labs must have some insect specimens to spare.

After half an hour she has to go. Jocelyn chivvies her offscreen to go put on her cleats, then bends down to say hello. “Your captain called,” she says, eyes serious. “Said he thought it would be good for you to talk to her. Is everything all right?”

He should maybe feel embarrassed about this. That his – Jim and his ex-wife are talking about him behind his back, and that she gets to know this thing about his life, and that Jim thought of this when the idea hadn’t occurred to him. But the hell of it all is that Jim was right. He feels lighter for having seen his daughter, and heard her voice, and absorbed her innocence.

“Just a rough few days,” he says. “Kids. It was good to lay eyes on her. Thanks, Joss.”

She smiles. Their frosty relationship is easier, somehow, when he is half a galaxy away. “Bye, Len.”

 

 

 

 

“I can’t do it. I can’t do it. I can’t.”

Jim is immensely glad that he thought to do this after hours, when the ship’s shuttle bay is empty, just one security ensign on duty and her outside the doors. This is their business, his and Leonard’s, and it wouldn’t do for anyone else to see it.

“Yes you can,” he says, then rounds the side of the shuttle and reconsiders his approach. It’s worse than he thought. Leonard is backed into the far corner, curling into himself, elbows propped on his knees, fisting both hands in his hair. “Hey,” Jim says, striding toward him quickly now. “Bones. It’s all right.”

“I can’t, I can’t even sit there, I can’t – ”  


“Stop. Not right now.” Jim kneels on the cold metal floor and crowds up close to Leonard, reaching for his hands. “Pause. Breathe in.”

The breath shudders in Leonard’s chest but Jim doesn’t remark on this, just lets him shiver into another attempt while Jim pries his hands gently from his hair. Leonard is terrified of _space_ , so Jim has found that the best approach is not to give him any. “I,” Leonard says, “I – I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be stupid,” Jim says. “Just shut up and breathe. I’ve got you. You’re all right.”

Leonard digs his knees into his forehead and Jim holds fast to his hands. He wonders if this is what Leonard feels like when he winds up in the sickbay, injured again, broken just a little around the edges. He hopes not.

After a moment he shifts, transferring one of Leonard’s hands to his opposite wrist, letting him hold on. With his free hand he ruffles Leonard’s hair, then scratches gently at his back, between the shaking shoulders. “Okay,” he says absently. “You’re okay.”

His knees are killing him when, an infinity later, Leonard lifts his head. “I’m sorry,” he says miserably, still holding on to Jim with both hands. “I can’t do it. I can’t _fly_ a shuttle, Jim, if I can’t even sit there and – ”

“Stop that,” Jim orders. “ _I’m_ sorry I went too fast. We’ll slow down. But you _can_ do this, Bones. I know it.”

“How?” Leonard asks hopelessly. “How can you possibly know that?”

“Because I know you, and because _I’m_ teaching you, after all.”

“Cocky asshole,” Leonard grumbles, and Jim relaxes a little, seats himself more comfortably on the cold floor.

“Seriously, Bones. Do you understand why I want you to learn this?”

“Because you were put on Earth to make my life difficult?”

“No. Because of – what life is for us out here. You’re a Lieutenant Commander and – oh, I don’t mean it like that,” he adds hurriedly as Leonard tenses, shoulders drawing towards attention. “Relax, Bones, I mean – you’re going to be in situations. You already have been. You don’t have to fly like Sulu. But if it’s your life on the line… I _need_ you to be able to do this.”

Leonard’s eyes go soft, suddenly, and he holds Jim’s gaze for a moment. “The life you save may be your own, eh?”

“Exactly.”

“Right.” Leonard pats his hand, then lets him go. “Let’s try again – tomorrow.”

Leonard is shocked, all those months later, when the life he saves turns out to be Jim’s – and those of an entire starbase into the bargain.

Jim isn’t surprised at all.

 

 

 

 

 

It’s the eighth birthday, by Leonard’s count, that he has spent with Jim Kirk. Eight for Jim, seven for Leonard, soon to be eight. On Leonard’s birthday he likes to stay quiet, get some friends together for a dinner at which nobody lets him pay. Jim likes to make a brightly colored cake appear at the hospital or sickbay without warning, so that everyone gets a piece, and Leonard pretends to get annoyed by the attention and the garish frosting balloons.

Jim’s birthdays have been just the two of them since their second year at the Academy. That first year, Leonard had met Jim at the bar only to realize that he had started drinking hours before. A lot more people were around that day, and a lot more alcohol. Jim had poked a dizzy finger into his ribs, accusing him of being pinch-faced and no-fun. Leonard had given up and nursed his own drink until he could convince Jim to go home.

It was on the way home that Jim started talking about his father. He couldn’t keep himself upright or keep his words untangled, but he could talk about his father. And vomit. He could do that too.

The next morning, Leonard handed Jim a mug of coffee and said bluntly, “I know getting shitfaced may seem like a great way to remember your pa, but it’s not.”

“I _don’t_ remember him,” Jim said flatly. “Not at all.”

“That doesn’t mean you need to drink for all the years he’s missed,” Leonard told him. He knew a little something about loss, after all. “I don’t want you to keep doing that to yourself, Jim.”

He remembers the way Jim looked up at him then, through purpled eyes, quietly, as though afraid of scaring the moment away.

“How about this,” Leonard said. “Next year we’ll pour him out his own drink. Sound good?”

Jim grunted and threw back his coffee. But the next year, that’s exactly what they did. Every year since, sometime around Jim’s birthday, they pour out an extra drink for George Kirk. On the day itself Jim holes up and gets some work done and Leonard lets him alone. As long as he’s not drinking himself to death, he would think. After they moved onto the _Enterprise_ and became minor celebrities, staying holed up and not talking to reporters got added to the list of good things to do on Jim’s birthday.

Leonard is thinking very hard about all this right now, sitting on a bench in a park in Yorktown, watching the hoverships fly by.

The thing is that it’s not just about his dad. If it were just about his dad they’d just have a party on a different day. It’s about all the years of birthdays with a sad mother, or an absent one, and no make-up celebration. It’s about being shuffled from relative to relative, most of whom did remember his birthday, in an obligatory kind of way. Jim doesn’t accept love easily. He doesn’t trust it.

He does trust Leonard. Which is why Leonard has guarded this day for him for the past six years.

Everything is different now.

There were days in the Academy when it felt like it was the two of them against the world. That’s not true anymore. It hasn’t been for a long time.

Jim’s crew would follow him to the edge of the universe. That’s not new. That happened a long time ago.

What’s new is that Jim is finally starting to accept it.

And the timing is so perfect.

\-----------------------------------------

As the party winds down, he stands with Jim at the big glass windows, facing right out from Yorktown into space. Right up against the glass, it’s hard to believe that they are on a structure capable of swallowing many starships and all their crew. On Jim’s other side, Spock and Uhura are murmuring quietly. Leonard sneaks a glance at Jim and remembers a time, a big sheet window into the void just like this one – Jim protecting him from it until he was ready, and then forcing him to tiptoe along the edge. It was after that that Jim taught him to fly.

“So,” he says. “Should I have kept it under wraps?”

Jim’s been wearing this smile all night, but the soft eyes are the ones he saves for Leonard. “No.”

“Thought so.”

“How did you know?”

Leonard shrugs. He knows a lot of things about Jim, who in turn knows him better than anyone yet living. It’s nothing he can put in words, or numbers, or charts. It’s an intangible.

“How do we ever know?” he says.


End file.
